FLOUR, SUGAR IN CORN BREAD? SURE.

In Saving Southern Recipes, Southern Kitchen’s Kate Williams explores the deep heritage of Southern cooking through the lens of passeddown, old family recipes.

I was always taught that the way in which we make our cornbread down here in the South was as much of a defining characteristic as saying the word “y’all.” Cornmeal, bacon grease, buttermilk, baking soda and powder, eggs — these ingredients are sacrosanct, and if you step near a tub of flour or sugar, bless your heart, you’re not from here.

But listen closely, and I’ll let you in on an open secret: There’s a traditional form of cornbread from deeply Southern middle Tennessee that calls for both — corn light bread.

Baked in a loaf pan and often just as sweet as any cornbread coming from north of the Mason-Dixon, corn light bread is a hybrid form of our beloved side dish that you’ll generally only see in and around Nashville.

Its curious name doesn’t come, as you’d expect, from a “lightening” of ingredients; it isn’t lower in fat, sugar or carbohydrates than any other cornbread. Instead, the name hints at the history of breads in the South.

When wheat flour was far more expensive than corn, the baked good most Southerners referred to as “bread” was actually cornbread.

Breads made with wheat flour and yeast were called “light bread” to describe their relatively lighter texture compared to the dense crumbly nature of Southern cornbread.

Corn light bread combined the two for an airy texture and sliceable crumb. Early versions of corn light bread actually contained yeast, and you can still find such recipes today.

These curiously use both dry yeast and commercial leavening agents, such as baking powder and baking soda, and are savory in flavor.

A far more typical recipe, at least today, is for sweet corn light bread. These varieties call for all kinds of sweeteners, from granulated sugar to sorghum, and they range in proportion of sweetness, from a demure bread appropriate for dinner, to loaves more akin to cake.

With 1/2 cup of sugar for 2 1/2 cups of dry ingredients, my corn light bread isn’t too-too sweet. Further, some of this sugar gets balanced by the tang of the buttermilk, resulting in a bread that will pair perfectly with a bowl of chili or a half-rack of ribs.

Do you have a beloved family recipe to share? Send a picture of the recipe card or a typed-out version of the recipe to kate@ southernkitchen.com.